CHINNOR staged a brilliant comeback to beat Esher in a thrilling adapted laws contest at Molesey Road.

Our Senior Squad showed great character in Surrey as they continued their building process heading into the 2021/22 season.

Laying the foundations is one of Director of Rugby Richard Thorpe’s aims for these May friendlies and he would have been delighted with the improvements in the space of a week.

The performance had already shown progression from seven days earlier, but it was even sweeter to secure victory through tries from one of our trialists, Ollie Smith and Nick Smith after trailing 14-0.

Thorpe’s 29-man squad further emphasised our one club ethos with a third of those players either coming through our youth section or previously playing for the Wildboys and Outlaws.

Four of the nine started, with Seb Scott, George Grose, Jon Lavin and Alex Cornish in the XV.

Ben Manning came into the side at blindside flanker, pulling on a Chinnor jersey for the first time since returning to the Club, while Jack Walsh and Ollie Smith waited in the wings for their first minutes.

The fixture was again played over three blocks of 20 minutes and with no scrums or mauls under the adapted laws. Esher were the better side in the opening period, but for the most part Chinnor’s defence stood firm.

The hosts continued to cause problems and Nick Smith did brilliantly to hold up a certain try, while Kieran Goss and Oscar Heath both made crucial tackles.

Esher were still enjoying the majority of possession and territory and they took the lead after 16 minutes when the full-back collected a box-kick and stormed through the middle of the pitch, offloading to the right winger to score a converted try.

The hosts went on to extend their lead to 14 points a couple of minutes into the second period after a missed tackle on our 22.

However, Chinnor were undeterred by the tries and they continued to battle away.

Jack Walsh’s introduction at scrum-half made a difference and quick ball allowed the likes of Manning, Soane Tonga’uiha and Stefan Iancu to make ground.

The pressure began to build and after a series of penalties, we got our reward when Nick Smith was just stopped short and our trialist flanker picked up to touch down. Nick Smith added the extras to close the gap to seven points.

Our first try in these adapted laws fixtures had a huge impact. Our tails were up, confidence was flowing and the intensity raised.

We went close to further reducing the arrears just before the end of the second session when Ollie Smith benefited from the bounce of Walsh’s cross-field kick and offloaded to Manning. The flanker held off one tackler and then found Ryan Lomas, but the prop was just stopped short and the ball was knocked on.

The first ten minutes of the third period was pretty even, with both teams not allowing each other to breathe in possession. Chinnor went on to win that particular battle and a quick penalty led to a sweeping move out to the right which saw Ollie Smith powerfully run in from 20m, diving over out wide for an unconverted try.

With just under ten minutes to go, there was still plenty of time for the visitors to go in search of another and it arrived just moments later when Nick Smith brilliantly intercepted a pass on half-way and had enough gas to outpace the chasing Esher players to score out wide.

The fly-half’s conversion attempt dropped just wide and although our lead was only three points, we comfortably saw out the rest of the contest.

A superb victory on the road, but most importantly it was another building block in our return to rugby.

Chinnor: Goss, Scott, Grose, Trialist, Heath, N Smith, Ham, Tonga’uiha, Fleckney, Lomas, Iancu, Lavin, Manning, Cornish, Whitehurst.
Reps: Trialist, Brewer, Inman, Hope, Trialist, Walsh, Pigott, Titchener, Brady, Ford, Snowden, Wilson, O Smith, Charlton.